14 arm and left the room. Crossing the hall, he saw that Rose was in her room sorting papers on her bed, and he stopped, hoping that she was in the mood to stand a bit of teasing. But she only looked up gloomily when she saw him. "Hello, Grandpa," she said. "I'm just getting rid of some Christmas and New Year's stuff. They seem a thousand years away to me now." She laughed bitterly. "Why, just think! I was even excited at going to a dance-just an ordinary dance in this town." "What are you after now?" he asked. "I'm not after anything at all. Ex- cept that there's going to be a big dance, a real dance, at Rolla, and Abbie Gilroy and I aren't sure we're going to be asked." She picked up a piece of card- board framed in passepartout. "My New Year's resolutions! When I see how childish they seem!" Her voice rose in an imitation of a child's voice as she read, " 'One, to refrain from talking in a loud voice. Two, to refraIn from borrowing Esther's or Mamma's personal proper- ty, also to refrain from lending my own. HABERDASHERY /: /// Three, to refrain from sarcasm.'" Her voice dropped back to normal. "And so on. It makes me ill to read it." "I can see how it might," he said. "Why don't you call up Abbie'?" "I've called her up six times this morning, and she's called me up about six times. There's nothing we can do but wait. But we did decide to destroy everything connected with our pasts. If we can't have a really exciting future, we just don't want anything. We've about decided to go to the river together if we can't go to Rolla." "I see," Grandpa Prophater said. He walked slowly into the room Tootie and Agnes shared. Agnes was sitting on the floor. Beside her were scissors, pa- per, and a saucer of flour-and-water paste, and she held a paper doll in one hand. Tootie had opened the window slightly and was eating bits of dirty snow from the window sill. "Don't speak to Agnes," she said. "Mrs. Van Dusen's head's worn almost off, and she doesn't want anyone to speak to her until she gets it fixed. Are we going to the fair- groun ds? " 11- o. SO&LOW JANUARY .3 1, I 9 4- 2. "Corinne doesn't have to fix her pa- per dolls," Agnes said. "Corinne is rich and lives in a hotel. They have prac- tically a whole floor to themselves and they order anything they want day and night from a large staff downstairs who are paid to wait on them hand and foot. Corinne doesn't have to cut her paper dolls out of magazines. She got a whole new set. Hand-painted by a real artist. They cost a fortune. They have the dearest little dresses that fasten on, so that she can have the same face for the same person all the time instead of hav- ing a different face with every dress. And this was my best Mrs. Van Dusen. And I think I'm going to have to change her name, because Van Dusen is too fancy, and the really rich are unpreten- . " tIOUS. "I'm still going to call my family Rockerfeller," Tootie said. "It sounds so funny. Are we going to the fair- grounds? " "You two can go where you like," Agnes said. "I'm going to go to see Corinne, and I'm taking the trolley. I'm not going to take my paper dolls, though. I'd be ashamed of them. I will merely say I forgot them." "Do you really want to go to the fair- grounds, Tootie?" Grandpa Prophater asked. "It will be all muddy, you know, and there won't be much to see. I don't want you to be disappointed." "I don't care about the mud," Tootie said. "It might give you an idea of myoId place," Grandpa Prophater said. Tootie stopped eating snow and looked at him. "What old place?" she asked. "What old place are you talking about ? You never had a place as big as the fairgrounds." Grandpa Prophater slipped the cap from under his arm and put it on his head. "Where do you think this came from?" he asked. "It came from your room. I've seen it there," T ootie said. " I d O d ' k h ., b " h I n t as you were It seen, e said. "I asked you where it came from." "Oh," Tootie said. "Where?" "That's what I'll tell you all about when we see the fairgrounds," he said. '.'1 don't think it's interesting at all," Agnes said. "Because you've always said you were a poor boy. I'm gOIng to Corinne's. I'm going to order anything I like when they offer me something to eat." Tootie took her grandfather's hand. Her own small hand was cold and wet from the snow. üLet's hurry," she said. "I can't bear to wait, can you?"